Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Delay in municipal elections in cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru has deprived their civic bodies from getting grants earmarked as per the 15th Finance Commission. The tenure of the current commission ends on Saturday. All grants under the commission were linked to the timely election for municipal entities.Considering that the civic election in Mumbai was held after a gap of seven years, the BMC and the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) did not get the entire Rs 4,031 crore allocated under the Finance Commission’s framework. Similarly, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike did not get Rs 2,304 crore as the municipal election was delayed by five years.“This provision of linking grant to existing elected local govt was a significant move by the 15th Finance Commission. But it seems political reasons override the expected financial grant that a city would get. Municipal elections have been subject to political considerations across all political regimes,” said an expert in urban governance.A recent study by Janaagraha, a Bengaluru-based not-for-profit institution, found that as many as 61% of urban local bodies across 17 states experienced postponements of municipal elections in recent years.
